Eco-villainy

Today’s New York Times has yet another of hundreds of similar articles exposing the complicity of American politicians in allowing big business to threaten the welfare of both the public and the planet. Nicholas Kristof’s article focuses on the cynical appointment by the Trump administation of pro-business, anti-regulatory personnel to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and how the toxic chemical chlorpyrifos that was in line to be banned will now be allowed to contribute to the profits of Dow Chemicals. The artice features a graph that shows the huge contributions made by Dow Chemical to the lobbying process in Congress and to Trump’s inauguration.

This pattern of buying political support by multi-billion dollar companies has a long an persistent history. The most successful campaign to place profit ahead of public health concerns was the 40-year delay in distorting the scientific links between smoking and cancer and heart disease. Then came the case of misleading the public about carcinogenous flame retardant chemical used in furniture and, of course, the massive impact of fossil energy companies buying politicians to deny the evidence on anthropogenic global warming. One might expect the pollution of land and sea by indestructible plastics to receive the same treatment by those who make profits from its production and free disposal into the natural world.

As citizens we can offer pin-prick local responses such as that of my friend Charlie Goodman in South Carolina who is engaged in a campaign in his suburb of Columbia to persuade local restaurants and food outlets to replace their use of plastics with materials more compatible with the cycles of nature. Charlie writes: We are getting ready to approach restaurants and bars with a whole set of tools (posters, signs, badges, surveys) and get them to sign on.

The new websitehas interesting short videos about the massive impact of man-made plastics on the Natural World. Hundreds of thousands of small campaigns and websites (case4all.org included) and the independent self-funding press are engaged in the David vs. Goliath testimony and action against eco-villainy that cares little for the side-effects of profit-making business success.

US Ecocide under Trump – Zinke exposed as agent of nature destruction motivated by fossil fuel political donations.